


Ohana means family

by moonlight_petal



Series: We are family verse [10]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Feels, Fever, Fluff, Gen, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, awesome bro Bozer, hospital visits, panicked Mac, reluctant grandma Matty, scared mac, sick david, worried Riley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 01:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19897279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight_petal/pseuds/moonlight_petal
Summary: Prompt:I'd really love a story where little David gets sick, with fever and worried Dad and Grandad, and his whole family caring for the little munchkin until he gets better.





	Ohana means family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TeddyTheCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeddyTheCat/gifts).



> So, here it is, the first request. I hope you like it, Teddy.
> 
> This one took me a little bit of time to get the proper beginning but then it flowed pretty easily. I hope it also reads that way. I had fun with the prompt, it was a pretty cute idea and as mentioned before, I can't actually believe that I hadn't thought of it before.  
> The title obviously comes from 'Lilo&Stitch' but I thought it fitting since in my opinion the Phoenix Family is pretty much the perfect example for the concept of 'ohana' as it was introduced in the Disney movie and Hawaii 5-0.
> 
> Again, I have no kids of my own, neither do I have any sort of medical knowledge. This is mostly based of googled research and a whole lot of creative license.  
> Please enjoy!

** Ohana means family **

The blond man startled awake confused and disoriented, woken up by a unfamiliar noise. Mac didn't even have to look at the clock on his nightstand to know that it was way before the time David usually woke up because he was hungry. And yet it was the strange sound coming from the baby monitor that had pulled the young father out of his sleep.

Quickly Mac pushed the covers off of him and silently padded into his son's bedroom, listening closely. In the room itself it was a lot louder and sounded more severe than over the baby monitor already. His son, his little boy whimpered softly in his sleep, his breathing sounding laboured as if he had to fight for every intake of the precious oxygen.

"David?" Mac whispered softly, gently gathering the child in his arms. "What's up, huh?" he murmured, carefully resting first his hands then his lips against David's forehead. "You're burning up, baby bug..." he determined with a calmness in his voice that he didn't feel. In fact, Mac felt highly unprepared for a sick baby, what was he going to do? He was barely able to take care of himself when he was sick, much less of his small son who was completely at his mercy. Mac's heartbeat skyrocketed, various scenarious running through his head, ideas what to do and discarding them at the same time. Most of it were remedies for the common cold for adults but neither was David an adult nor was Mac sure that his son had come down with the common cold or something else. How should he know? He might be clever but he was no doctor, on the contrary at the moment he was close to panicking for fear of missing something and endangering David's well-being.

David had come awake fully by now and to Mac it sounded like he was struggling even worse with his breathing now that he had started crying and coughing as well. Quickly he grabbed the stuffed dog from the bed, cradled it against David's chest before he ran out of the room.

"Bozer?!" In the moment Mac didn't care that it was the middle of the night, as he barged into the bedroom of his oldest friend with only one hard knock as a warning. "Boze, wake up!"

"I'm up, I'm up! What's happening? Mac what?" Bozer shot bolt upright in his bed, wide eyed, instinctively scanning the room for danger when his eyes fell on his blond friend. "Mac?" He still was trying to get his scrambled, just woken up brain back on track but even in the pale moonlight coming in through the window, Bozer picked up on the faint, barely there, tremble shaking his friend and the fact that he was holding his whimpering son in his arms.

In seconds he was on his feet.

"Mac, what's the matter? And, please, bro, do us both a favour and breathe!" the slightly older man said, gripping Mac's shoulder tightly before he turned his attention to the baby in his friend's arms. "What's the matter, huh? Can you tell me, little man, while your daddy is calming down?"

Bozer gently pulled the boy from Mac's slightly resisting arms, immediately starting a soft rocking motion. Obviously the child wouldn't be able to tell him anything but this way Bozer could get an idea himself as to what might be the problem, aside from what he was already hearing until Mac got his thoughts straight.

"He's sick, Boze... it sounds like he can't breathe and he's burning up and god knows what else what we can't see and he can't tell us, maybe he's in pain and we don't even know? What do we do?" Mac whispered, looking at his friend helplessly.

Bozer had gathered as much judging by the heat emanating from the small person in his arms.

"Did you take his temperature?" Bozer asked.

"No, not yet... I think it's pretty obvious that he's running a high fever, don't you think?" Mac asked, his face scrunched up.

"True, but we still need to know exactly what his temperature is, only then we will know what we should do, Mac. Think about it, bro, we need facts, not guesses."

Bozer could see how his words penetrated Mac's fear fogged brain, shook his head with a small, fond smile when Mac turned on his heels and sprinted from the room to get the thermometer. His best friend might usually be the brightest person in the room but right now he was like any other young parent, overwhelmed and scared. Not that he wasn't concerned at the state his little man was in.

Moments later Mac skidded back into the room with the contactless thermometer in his hand which had been the first thing actually Mac himself had added to the collection of things Nikki had sent him since it was a lot easier to use.

Anxiously he pointed the sensor to David's forehead in Bozer's arms and waited for the reading to come out. The soft beep alerted them mere seconds later.

"And?" Bozer asked, not liking at all how pale Mac had turned all of a sudden.

"39,4°C (~103°F), that's bad, right? My baby boy is literally burning up right now, isn't he? What do we do, Boze? Tell me, I have no idea what to do..." the slight tremble from before turned into worse shaking now and Bozer feared that Mac would collapse on him soon if they didn't do anything soon.

"Okay, Mac, bro... stay with me, alright? David's fever is a bit higher than I expected but we got this, okay? Why don't you take your son and see if you can get him to drink something. He needs lots of fluids like any of us would do with a fever like this. And I'll go and pack a bag for him and then we go and visit the hospital and let him get checked over. They are professionals and will know what to do. It's not..." Bozer said, stopping Mac's panicked interjection with one upheld hand. "It's not because I think he necessarily needs the hospital but just to be sure. Better safe than sorry, right? They will know what to do and then we can all calm back down and make sure that our baby bug gets better quickly. Alright?"

"Yeah, alright. Thank you Boze. And sorry for waking you up in the middle of the night." Mac added softly, immensely grateful for his friend and his taking over in this emergency.

"Are you kidding me? Mac I would have been seriously pissed if you *hadn't* woken me up right now! Now go, get the little man a bottle with watered down tea, he needs it." Bozer shook his head slightly. Sometimes his friend really was kind of ridiculous.

He did have an ulterior motif, however, when he sent Mac off to the kitchen while he packed David's diaper bag with everything he might need, especially in the case that he needed to stay.

He closed the door and pulled out his phone.

"What the fudge? This better be an emergency or you, my friend, owe me big time, Bozer! Do you have any idea what time it is?" Bozer let Jack get his grumbling out of his system, inwardly chuckling over the fact that even barely awake Jack already cencored his curses now.

"I know, Jack, trust me, I know but it *is* an emergency. David's sick, Mac and I are getting ready to take him to the ER to get him checked. He has a pretty hard time breathing and he's running a high fever..." the younger man quickly relayed all the information they currently had.

"Crap, how high?" Jack asked.

"Pretty high, over 39°C..." Bozer replied with a sigh.

"Shit and Mac?" Bozer could here the rustling in the background, knowing that Jack would start getting ready right about now if he hadn't been already.

"Freaked... I mean, no kidding, I'm concerned as well but Mac's... he's pretty much falling apart right now, Jack. I think he needs you there."

"One step ahead of you, buddy, I'm almost at the car already. You going to the Childrens Hospital, I assume? I'll meet you there and I'm going to call Riley and Matty, too. Whatever this turns out to be, they will want to know and be there for the little munchkin. See you in a bit. And don't you let Mac drive right now, knowing the kid he's in no state to drive."

"He's not, definitely. And yeah, I guess that's the plan, it's a little further away but for David I think it's the best location. And thanks Jack, I think having the whole family there will help Mac a lot even if he won't admit it out loud." Bozer said. "See you there."

Jack just hummed in response before the call cut off and Bozer hurried out of the nursery to collect Mac and David.

~*~

The two men and the baby arrived first at the hospital and luckily were welcomed by an older nurse, who took charge of the situation with a friendly and calm demeanour that set them immediately more at ease.

She took David in her arms and gestured for Mac to follow her to get the child checked out by a doctor.

During the inital examination they allowed Mac to stay by David's side but at some point the doctor asked the nurse to accompany the young father back to the waiting area. The blond fought at first but the doctor, a friendly looking but stern man who reminded Mac uncomfortably of his father, assured him that David wasn't in any danger but that they had to do a few more tests and then they would settle the boy in a room where Mac could join his son again.

It took some convincing but in the end Mac relented and let the doctor do his work and followed the nurse outside to the waiting area.

**

The moment Mac stepped into the well-lit room, he was taken aback at seeing not only Bozer but Jack, Riley and Matty as well. All looking expectantly at him.

Overwhelmed by the concern of the whole family, Mac pretty much tripped over his own feet inside the room and right into Jack's arms who -knowing Mac as well as he did- had already taken several steps closer to catch him when he would undoubtedly crumble.

The exhaustion, fear and the show of love caught up to the young father who buried his face against Jack's shoulder and just sobbed softly for several minutes.

"Thank you for coming..." Mac rasped after a while and slowly disentangled himself from the embrace.

Jack ruffled his hair gently.

"Always, kid. You know that!"

Mac wasn't on his own for long though, because the moment Jack let go of the blond, Riley pulled him into a short hug herself.

Matty didn't go that far, not that Mac had expected the older woman to, but she wordlessly showed her support with a gently pat on his shoulder when Mac finally dropped into an empty chair next to her.

"Alright, what's the diagnosis?" Bozer finally asked. It had warmed his heart to watch his chosen family like that but his worry finally won out.

"Don't know yet... from what I gathered, David's symptoms could be caused by three different things and right now they are doing further tests to hopefully determine what it is exactly. Whatever it is will also determine how long David will have to stay here but they want to keep him over night to monitor his fever and more importantly his breathing." Mac told them.

Jack gently squeezed his shoulder.

"Well now, that doesn't sound too bad, right? Look, kid, don't you go anywhere near thinking that any of this could be your fault. Children get sick, that's normal and to some degree even good for them, understood? I might not always understand how this big brain of yours works but I know *you*, so stop blaming yourself for this. And one thing is for sure, with parents like David's, there is no way that this little guy is anything *but* a fighter! Just you wait, give him a couple of days and he'll run around HQ again and keep you on your toes."

"Exactly and above all else, David is stubborn just like his dad. He's in good hands now, bro!" Bozer added.

"Thank you for this vote of confidence. The family of David MacGyver I assume?" the doctor who had examined David before had silently entered the waiting area.

Almost as one, all five of them got to their feet, Mac just a step more to the front.

"Yeah that's right, what about David? Where is he?"

"Mr. MacGyver, I'm happy to tell you that your son did very well with the remaining tests we had to do. By this time we thankfully were able to rule out a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease which would have been the worst case scenario really. Right now we are waiting for the analysis of the bloodwork to determine if your son is suffering from a three day fever, which is quite common at his age, or if he has contracted the flu. In the morning we certainly will know more. Until then we have settled him in a room where you can stay with him. We hooked him up with supplementary fluids and some medication to bring his fever down. Don't be alarmed, we are also giving him oxygen to help with his breathing."

"How long will he have to stay here, doctor?" Matty asked.

"We'd like to keep him here for 24 hours at least. We will know more after the blood work results are in. At this point, going from my personal experience, I think it's more likely that it's the three day fever which turned out to be more severe for him than in other cases. It varies, Mrs.."

"Webber, Mathilda Webber... director of the Phoenix Foundation, boss and friend of the family. Thank you for your help, we appreciate it a lot."

"Not to forget, she got pretty much adopted as David's grandmother." Jack smirked which elicited a glare by Matty and an amused smile by the doctor.

"Well... if there aren't anymore questions, Nurse Jones will take you to David now and I will be in contact as soon as we know more." the doctor bid his goodbye to tend to his other patients while the group of five silently followed the nurse.

In the room, Mac was by David's side in only a few steps, closely observing the lines and everything currently surrounding his son. David himself was sleeping again, exhausted by the fever and the whole ordeal and certainly knocked out by the medication as well.

"Oh my... he looks even more tiny than he usually does..." Riley whispered softly, a worried expression on her face.

Jack gently pulled the young woman into a side hug to comfort her.

"Well from what I've seen and heared before, Mac has been a tiny, scrawny little thing as well when he was young and look at him now. Still scrawny but strong and brilliant. And David will be just the same!" he murmured, bringing out a small smile on the hackers lips which had been the idea from this statement.

They gathered around the crib for the rest of the night, watching over the newest addition to their family, only sometimes dozing off for a few moments before jerking awake again and focusing back on the raspy but regular breathing of the small boy.

**

In the early hours of the morning the doctor silently entered the room, observing the small, motley crew of a family with a soft smile. In his years at the hospital he had seen a lot but this bunch certainly stood out to him with their strong bond even without any sort of blood relation or other sort of relationship within the group as far as he had been able to see.

"Mr. MacGyver?" he called out to the blond man in the middle.

"Oh, yes? Do you have the results? Can you tell me now what my son has?" Mac asked and it was completely down to the utter exhaustion and emotional preoccupation that neither of the younger agents had even noticed the arrival of the doctor. Jack and Matty had certainly noticed but hadn't acknowledged it.

"Yes, we have. The results corroborate with my assumption. David is suffering from a slightly more severe form of the three day fever." The doctor stepped next to Mac and expertly started to check David's temperature, heartbeat and breathing without waking the child. "I'm glad to tell you that your son is recuperating nicely. The antipyretic medication is working well. The fever is going down at a good rate now."

He stepped back a little again, shortly looking around the groub before adressing Mac again.

"Just as a precaution since your son's airways and lungs have suffered a little more than usual, I'd like to keep him another day for observation and to provide him with the oxygen he needs, to prevent damage and the risk of pneumonia. If nothing out of the ordinary occurs you should be able to take him home tomorrow morning though. Would that be alright?"

The doctor didn't really expect this particular father (and family) to go against his recommendation but in his years on the job he had seen a lot of things.

"Of course, thank you. If you think it's the best for my son, then there is no question, doctor." The relief was obvious on Mac's face and the slight sagging of his shoulders. It made way for the exhaustion now which had been held at bay by his worry before.

"Alright, Mr. MacGyver. I will arrange for the necessary care and I will also arrange for a cot to be brought here. I suggest you and your family take a much needed rest now. David is in good hands. My shift ends in an hour. If you have any more questions after that, my collegues will be happy to answer them for your of course. I will see you tomorrow morning again for the final examination. Have a good day everyone."

Once again the man bid his goodbye, leaving a relieved family behind.

"Phew... finally good news." Bozer sighed, dropping back down in his chair.

"Good news indeed, Bozer. Although I regret to say it, but I have to get back to the Phoenix. Someone has to make sure everything works." Matty said, stepping closer to the crib, trailing her fingertips over David's soft hair. "You three are free to stay here with Mac and David. Keep me updated. Jack, a word!" she fixed the oldest agent with a quick look and nodded in the direction of the door.

"Thank you for coming, Matty. It meant a lot to me even if it didn't look like it."

"Ah, don't worry about it, blondie. Of course!"

Bozer and Riley murmured soft goodbyes as well and Jack followed his boss outside.

"I know it's not really necessary but I leave you in charge here. Make sure the lot of them rest and eat something, Mac especially, is that clear, Dalton?" Matty looked at the older man.

Jack smirked but nodded.

"Trust me, I have it under control. Don't you worry about it. And hey, from me as well, thanks for coming. I know you were a little reluctant with the whole 'grandmother' thing and as much as I'm teasing you with it, I'm glad David has you. There literally is noone better I could imagine for that particular job." He leaned down some more and gathered Matty in a short hug.

"Yeah well... thank you, Dalton. I appreciate it but that's no reason to get all emotional on me. Just go and do your job." Matty said a little gruffly and turned to go. A few steps down the hall, she turned her head. "Oh and Jack? For what it's worth? I can't imagine a better grandfather for that kid either. And I know his biological grandfather."

Jack just laughed at that before he turned and went back inside the hospital room and to his family.

**

A day later David and his whole family returned back home.

The child was still mostly sleeping but otherwise he was on the road of recovery. The doctor had warned that David would be more tired and weak for a few days longer even if his fever was gone but that that was perfectly normal under the circumstances.

They all fussed over the little boy with every small whimper he uttered, already looking forward again to the time that David would be running around the house again, filling it with his childish giggles and bright smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> edit: almost forgot... please do still feel free to share what you would like to read about in further installments, can't make any promises I'll be able to write them but I will consider the suggestions. Just leave me a note in the comments.


End file.
